The latest buzz in the industry has been centered on reports inferring changes in how Google shares and serves up data. The “official” announcement concerning Google’s encryption of search query data for paid search came recently on Wednesday, April 9, 2014 and has left many PPC experts and customers to wonder, what’s next?

First lets take a step back. In 2011 the world was rocked when Google moved to secure search, which at the time created a challenge for SEO practitioners who lost the ability to view organic keyword level performance data in analytics tools. Recent rumblings of encryption resulted in fear for those PPC experts who were familiar with the 2011 change, and with what it would mean for them today.

The announcement on Google’s Ads Developer Blog stated, “Today, we are extending our efforts to keep search secure by removing the query from the referrer on ad clicks originating from SSL searches on Google.com. Advertisers will continue to have access to useful data to optimize and improve their campaigns and landing pages.”

As suspected, secure search is being extended to cover ad traffic, in addition to, organic traffic; signifying that search query data will no longer pass in referring URLs for ads on Google. The keywords “not provided” which have been visible in Google Analytics therefore now apply to Google ads and to organic traffic.

NJ PPC Experts at leading NJ PPC online marketing agency CMDS and Christopher Mulvaney, founder and president of CMDS PPC marketing agency, state, “The impact is not going to be as astronomical as everyone assumed. However, with that said, there will be an effect to some of the keyword level data available through site side analytics tools including Google analytics. The effect and difference being that we are no longer going to know what the exact keyphrases are that are not part of our campaign, as we once did.”

Paid search marketing specialists, such as the NJ PPC experts at CMDS PPC management company remain confident in their ability to increase brand awareness and website conversions. Consequently, NJ PPC experts at NJ internet marketing agency CMDS will continue producing effective PPC management campaigns and the NJ team of paid search marketing professionals believe there is no need to panic.

If you would like assistance in paid search management for your company, and would like to talk to one of our NJ PPC experts, contact NJ marketing agency, CMDS today at 732-706-5555! We look forward to hearing from you.